First Kiss
by RevSue
Summary: C & J vignette a missing scene from PD1 where I think they may have kissed for the first time.


_Disclaimer: I don't own any of these characters since Princess Diaries 1 & 2, and its characters are the property of Disney, Buena Vista, and Meg Cabot. I make no money from this work of fiction._

First Kiss

"WHY didn't she have enough common sense to DEAL with this?" Clarisse shook the paper and dropped it on the desk again. Her grand-daughter's face looked up at her from the front page, and Clarisse's heart wrenched at the horror she could see in Mia's eyes even in the pictures. It was more than obvious Mia was quite well aware of what had just happened. Clarisse felt the turmoil rising inside herself, knowing it was the frustration she was feeling over Mia's hesitation to accept the role of princess which was the young girl's birthright, and she sternly clamped down on it. Clarisse was the queen. It was her duty to the people of Genovia to see that the Renaldi rule continued in the tradition it had begun five hundred years ago. She couldn't afford to make too many allowances for the teenager's behaviour as Mia was being molded into the person who fit the requirements for the throne. Why couldn't her grand-daughter see that?

"She's only fifteen," Joseph pointed out mildly. Clarisse blew out her breath and looked away. Joseph was being much too easy on the child, she felt, even for a glorified babysitter! He continued quietly, "But today she acted beyond her years. She showed great respect and gracefully accepted your criticism." His tone made Clarisse realize that he did not believe her criticism to be justified at all. He was blaming her, HER, for being too hard on the girl! Didn't anyone understand what Clarisse was trying to do? She had been certain that Joseph, of all people, would be on her side! He had been her husband's right hand for years, and had continued to serve her after Rupert's death. He KNEW what was at stake with Mia's acceptance of the role she had been born to play!

"You're saying that as a queen, I was too harsh on her," she stated, standing up and walking around the desk to stare at him directly. "I was critical of the person who COULD become the next ruler of my country!" She spoke passionately, trying to defend her actions.

Joseph put his hands behind his back, and Clarisse was convinced it was merely to stop himself from taking her shoulders and shaking some sense into her. "No," he contradicted her quietly. "I'm saying, as a grandmother, you might have been too harsh on your grand-daughter."

Clarisse sighed and looked away, tacitly acknowledging that he was right. But Mia's behaviour really HAD been reprehensible! She had promised Lilly an appearance on her friend's television show, then had promptly broken that engagement without letting Lilly know, just to go to a ... a beach party where she might have KNOWN disaster would be right around the corner! Still, as Joseph had said, Mia HAD been very contrite and HAD accepted Clarisse's criticism with remarkable dignity and aplomb. In fact, she had acted like the princess she had been born to be. Clarisse gazed at Joseph intently, and appealed, "Do YOU think she can do it?"

"Oh, I have no doubt, madam," Joseph assured her sincerely, and she knew he had forgiven her harshness by the sudden relaxing of his body. The poor man must have been quaking in his boots daring to criticize the queen, however subtly he did it!

Clarisse nodded, her eyes showing her deep thought. "I thought so, too," she admitted, and a faint smile appeared on her face. She looked over at the picture on the shelf on which Mia had kept a wistful gaze while her grandmother expostulated on the unacceptable behaviour which had resulted in the two pictures of Mia being plastered all over the front page of the newspaper. The princess had definitely made headlines the night before, and Clarisse was not looking forward to the damage control she was going to have to effect in an hour!

"I just don't know what to DO, Joseph!" she admitted at last, unconsciously wringing her hands. "If she was completely unacceptable, I would say it wouldn't matter, but she has the potential to be a great queen! Why will she not listen to me, take the lessons I'm offering her to heart? WHY ISN'T SHE TRYING?"

"She IS trying," Joseph hesitated for only a split second, then his hands were on hers, stilling their almost compulsive movements. "Every day I can see improvements. At first she didn't want to accept your advice, and she was VERY unsure after Paolo changed her appearance ..."

"For the better!" Clarisse interjected, allowing her hands to remain encased in his. "She is MUCH better now!"

"Yes, and had you heard what Miss Lilly said about the change, and seen how your grand-daughter bravely held back her tears, you would have one more example of the princess' coming into her own as a confident young girl, AND as a princess."

"I know I should believe you, Joseph. You are, after all, closer to her than I am ..." again Clarisse's hands clenched in his, and his fingers began to gently massage hers, very gradually relaxing her.

"You are family, I am not." he said simply.

Clarisse's smile was tinged with bitterness. "According to Mia, family doesn't leave important secrets like royal blood unrevealed for fifteen years."

"I had thought ... your day alone with her ..." Joseph spoke a little hesitantly, and the tightness in his voice reminded her that he had not been at all pleased about that day.

"It helped," Clarisse admitted. "But we have a long way to go to forge a relationship."

"No relationship worth having will ever be easy," Joseph murmured, his eyes on hers.

Searching his eyes even as he searched hers, Clarisse was silent and still. She became aware of the touch of his hands. Knowing she should pull away, she couldn't move. He lifted her hands to his mouth, eyes never leaving hers, and he kissed first one, and then the other. When she made no protest and showed no signs of pulling away, he kissed them again, then again, covering every inch of the back of her hands before turning them over and pressing his lips to her palms. His tongue touched her skin and a shiver of delight ran through her with the force of lightning. She found herself leaning against the desk, his body pressing close to hers, their eyes still locked.

"Any relationship with you will be worth having," he spoke huskily.

Coherent thought fled, lost in a riot of sensations with the soft brush of his moustache and goatee against her palms and the slide of his lips across her highly sensitized skin. His muscles flexed as he moved, tiny pressures that massaged and stimulated. Every inch of her hands felt acutely sensitized as with no more than the brush of fingertips and of breath, a flick of his tongue and the constant, tantalizing heat of his body all along her own, he brought her swiftly to a peak of expectancy that banished reason.

She suddenly noticed that his mouth was well-shaped, generous, and strong without being too hard. She was struck by a crazy impulse to reach up and try to touch his lips, trace their outline gently with her fingers. She was filled with a heady excitement. Her eyes were on his lips, and she imagined them covering her lips instead of just touching her hands so seductively. Fiery passion began to run though her body. Wondering only that she continued to breathe, she realized fully how strong the attraction between them was and had been, ever since they had danced together just a few short days ago, and perhaps even before that. His hands, at that time, had controlled her movements very correctly and very precisely, and her gaze had been transfixed by his, even as she was transfixed now. She wanted his lips on hers ... She must be mad! What was she doing!

Their gazes locked. Mere inches separated them. It would require only the slightest effort for her to lean forward and taste that warm, tantalizing mouth, but she should not. It was her duty as queen to suppress her personal desires and concentrate on what would be best for her country. She had a duty to Genovia to offer them a princess of the Renaldi blood. She had a duty to ... Her mind stuck on the word, even as her eyes once more dropped to his lips which were caressing her fingertips, sucking them gently.

Duty. A mere word to some, yet everything to her. She fought against his magnetism, determined to exit his presence without looking back. She tried. Yet beneath the training and discipline, the formidable self-control, and the dedication to duty, she was also something she had denied too long. She was no longer Queen Clarisse, but instead was thinking and feeling only and utterly as a woman, as Clarisse. Somehow Joseph had slipped past her defences without her even realizing, and she had to know what it would be like to be in his arms, to feel his lips on hers ...

Her lips parted as she imagined what it would be like, and unconsciously she swayed even closer to him, her heart beating rapidly and erratically. She needed his kiss, needed it NOW! Just one kiss, that was all she would ask. She raised her eyes to his and knew instantly that he had divined her thoughts. Flames leaped into his eyes, blinding her to all else but them and the moment. Now his hands were on her shoulders and he was drawing her to him even as the responsible, disciplined part of her nature looked on in blank amazement. Then her arms were around his neck, and her face was raised eagerly to his. His lips brushed hers, once, twice ...

Joseph groaned throatily, expecting any moment to have her push away in anger but finding himself intoxicated even further. Her mouth was as soft, sweet, and lush as he had imagined. The taste and scent of her filled him. He couldn't get enough of whatever it was about her that so fascinated him -- courage, beauty, intelligence, a certain prickly defiance that was melting so appealingly into pure passion. She made a low, utterly female sound and relaxed into him. He hadn't misread the invitation in her eyes! Relieved, he deepened the kiss. She met him hotly with hunger that fed his own. He had dreamt of this, never expecting to ever be able to actually experience it. She had become entwined in the very fibres of his life and he had been sure he would never be able to approach her openly with his feelings, but now ... now he concentrated on pouring all his secret love and adoration for her into his kiss.

Somehow, Clarisse knew one kiss would never be enough. His mouth was too inviting, too persuasive by far. For the first time in her life, she felt such a strong, swift rising of desire, it took her breath away. Indeed, she thought she might never breathe again and might never want to. He slid his palm along the column of her neck, tunnelled his fingers through her hair, and she shivered. The heat from his touch melted some deeply buried defence mechanism she had desperately clung to for years. She moaned faintly, but couldn't draw back. Not yet. Desperately she pressed herself even closer to him, her reaction astonishing them both.

A dam had broken, destroying every ounce of sanity she possessed. Her senses came alive again, spiralling in a wave of heat as she returned his kiss, not at all shocked at her own eager response to his slow, drugging seduction. When he pulled away to look at her, the fire of his eyes matched the inferno inside her. Then his mouth slanted over hers once more and she fully understood the hunger they shared. A need denied to them for too many years.

Joseph demanded, and Clarisse responded. He took and she gave herself up to the passion enveloping them. She clung to him as if to a lifeline. Blood pounded in her ears as jolt after jolt of wild sensation rocketed through her.

Then, incredibly, he was easing away from her, murmuring endearments, stroking her cheeks, her neck, her arms. Clarisse allowed him to step back slightly, but her fingers lingered on his cheeks, his neck and his arms. She slowly opened her eyes, knowing she was looking as dazed as she felt. Gradually his soft whispers began to register.

"I cannot apologize for kissing you, Clarisse, but only for the timing. Charlotte will be in any moment, I am quite sure, and damage control for a fifteen-year-old's public kiss would be nothing alongside any publicity about a presumed relationship between you and I. It was never my intention to do anything that would harm the dignity of the crown. I love you, my darling, enough to know that there can be no public scandal around you. I just need to know that you feel as I do, that you are not simply missing Rupert, that I haven't misread the message in your eyes ..."

"Dear Joseph, I ..." Clarisse swallowed hard. Her fingers lightly touched his cheek again. "I'm not missing Rupert," she confessed in a barely audible voice. "You must understand how I feel ..."

"That's all I need to know for now. I DO understand that our ... friendship ... must be kept in the shadows until everything is settled with the princess. You have my full support and my unspoken love always. I just want you to know that." His voice was husky, his eyes full of love for her.

"Oh Joseph ... thank you ... for everything ..." Her fingers brushed over his lips, then she visibly pulled herself together.

"Keep trying with Mia," he said quietly. "She is very like you. In her I see a young girl horrifying her in-laws at her first State dinner by dismantling a suit of armour and sending the lance through a suckling pig." Clarisse smiled at his words. "In her I see what I see in her grandmother: inner beauty, courage, a loving heart, dedication, and a willingness to strive always to be the best she possibly can be despite what fate throws at her. Don't give up on her, Clarisse. Don't give up on yourself. You are both incredible women."

Taking a deep breath, Clarisse nodded. Hearing Charlotte's quick step in the hallway, Clarisse regretfully stepped back, her eyes still on Joseph's. For just a moment they stood there, close enough to touch but no longer touching, letting the quiet rays of newly-shared warmth encircle the two of them. She would not give up. Nor would Joseph.


End file.
